The Emperors Candlesticks | Page 2

all Russias, remembered only that he was twenty years of age, that he had come to the opera ball, accompanied by that dry old stick Lavrovski, with the sole purpose of enjoying himself incognito for once, andhe started off in hot pursuit.
The passage behind the box was quite empty, but in the direction leading to the foyer, some fifty yards, distant, he distantly caught the sight of a swiftly disappearing figure, and the heels of the prettiest pair of Turkish slippers it had ever been his good fortune to see.
The foyer was, at that late hour of the night, a scene of the motley, most picturesque confusion. Assyrian queens were walking arm in arm with John Bulls, Marguerites were coquetting unblushingly with gallants of some two centuries later, while Hamlets and Orthellos were indulging in the favourite Viennese pastime of hoisting their present partners on to the tallest pillars they could find, with a view to starving them out up there, into a jump some ten or twelve feet below, when they would perforce land into the outstretched arms of their delighted swains.
And very pretty these tall pillars looked, thus decorated with living, laughing, chatting figures of vivandières, Pirrettes, aye- and of sober Ophelias and languishing Isoldes. But the black domino heeded than not; darting hither and thither, taking no notice of cheeky sallies and rough bousculades, he pushed his way through the crowd towards one spot, close to the entrance, where a special little jewelled cap was fast disappearing through the wide open portals, that led into the gaily lighted place beyond.
The odalisque had evidently either repented of her audacious adventure, or was possessed of an exceptionally bold spirit, for without a moment's hesitation she ran down the stone steps, taking no further heed of the jesting crowd she was forced to pass through, or of the two or three idle masks who accosted her, and also started in pursuit.
Having reached the bottom of the steps she seemed to hesitate a moment, only a second perhaps- was it intentional?- but that second gave Nicholas Alexandrovitch the chance he had for some time striven for; he overtook her, just as she laid her hand on the door of a faiker which has drawn up, and lifted her off the ground as if she were a feather, he placed her inside, and sat down in front of her, hot and panting, while the coachman, without apparently waiting for any directions, drove off rapidly through the ever noisier and gayer crowd.
CHAPTER 2
ALL this had excited little or no attention among the bystanders. How should it? An opera ball teems with such episodes. Two young people, one in pursuit of the other - a signal - a handy faiker, et voila! Who cares? Everybody is busy with his own affairs, his own little bits of adventure and intrigue.
Surely that grey domino over there, standing under one of the fine electric light chandeliers, could have no interest in the unknown odalisque and her ardent swain, for he made not the slightest attempt at pursuit; yet his eyes followed the fast disappearing faiker, as long as it was recognisable amidst the crowd of vehicles and mummers. A young man he was; evidently not anxious to remain incognito, for he had thrown back the hood of his domino, and held the mask in his hand.
Yet though he thus, as it were, courted recognition, he visibly started as a soft musical voice, with the faintest vestige of foreign intonation, addressed him merrily.
"Why so moody, M. Volenski? Have Strauss' waltzes tired out your spirits, or has your donna eloped with a hated rival?"
The young man pulled himself together, and forced open his eyes and thoughts to wander away from the faiker, which now appeared as a mere speck, to the graceful figure in front of him, who owned that musical voice and had called him by name.
"Madam Demidoff!" he said, evidently not pleasantly surprised.
"Herself," she replied, laughingly; "do not assume an astonishment, so badly justified. I am not a Viennese grande dame, and coming to an opera ball is not the most unpardonable of my eccentricities."
"Yes! but alone?"
"Not alone," she rejoined, still merry, "since you are here to protect me from my worst perils, and lend me a helping hand in the most dire difficulties."
"Allow me to start on these most enviable functions by finding your carriage for you," he said, a trifle absently.
She bit her lip, and tried a laugh, but this time there was a soup?on of harshness in the soft foreign notes.
"Ah, Ivàn, how you must reckon on my indulgence, that you venture so unguardedly on so ungallant a speech!"
"Was it ungallant?"
"Come, what would your judgement be on a young man, one of our jeunesse dorée-, who, meeting a lady at the opera ball, offers,